PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY: It's Role in Creating a Better WorldNine Berrett-Koehler Authors invite your to think, question and explore ideas with them on how we can all get involved in shifting the course we are presently on. Meet bestselling author, John Perkins (Confessions of an Economic Hit Man) and eight other distinguished authors. Free. No registration required. LEARN MORE AND LISTEN IN

WHAT WOULD WE DO...I've wondered what the media would do when we reached 100 US military lives lost this month. This morning, I see the banner declaring the shameful headline that US troop death toll in Iraq for October hits 100. Is it this kind of milestone that will wake us all up????? Interestingly, it is amazing that unless it's an even-numbered milestone, we hardly hear reports on lives lost ---- except in ones and twos here and there-----and this only happens if there is room after reports on Congressman child molesters and Madonna's attempt to do something nice for disadvantaged child.

Somehow, we've not yet hit or heard a number that has given the average American citizen a real jolt. I am assuming this is by design. Most of us don't even realize that 100 isn't anything, when you look further at the IRAQ US military casualties in the last 10 months, finding it is 633 military lives lost. Most notable,671 is the total lives lost in last 10 months for "BUSH's coalition" --- NOTE: Lives lost in all other countries in BUSH's coalition, including the UK hit 38 lives lost vs. the US 633 men and women dad in the same period. Either they have different jobs, better armor or there aren't many there, yes? It appear the idea of "coalition" has also been broadly defined and sold to us too. Meanwhile, our American military is put in harms way at the whim of a bunch of politicians, who are fully committed to their rhetorical war --- with none of their sons and daughters among the dead.

My guess is that most Americans are too busy with their lives to even notice the Iraq death toll numbers, if my own friends are an example. After all, unless the life lost hurts you or your day-to-day life, it is easy for us to turn our heads.

Another, example is when the study of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimated that that over 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since BUSH's coalition arrived in March 2003. This number is 20 times the number BUSH was willing to admit last December last year.

DID THIS NUMBER OF DEATHS OR ITS REALITIES EVEN PHASE THE AMERICAN PUBLIC?No. Not by any visible means. When BUSH and RUMSFELD, already proven to be less than trustworthy and notably disinterested in civilian casualties by their own admission, went to the podium and summarily dismissed the study with just a shrug of their shoulders and a few negatively toned words, the story was never talked again.

Did the average American citizen know or care that the study questioned by BUSH was done by some of the most admired and trusted researchers? Did they even read what was surveyed and discovered? I've not yet found a person that heard more than the message that the study was questioned. That's one for the White House!

WHAT THE STUDY SAID AND WHO CONDUCTED IT:The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq's mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

Of the total 655,000 estimated "excess deaths," 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

The survey was done by Iraqi physicians and overseen by epidemiologists at Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health. The findings are being published online today by the British medical journal the Lancet. Washington Post

THE FUTURE RESTS IN OUR HANDS I heard a chilling account of the far-reaching implications of this ongoing IRAQ WAR and the failed policies of the BUSH Administration on C-SPAN with Scott Ritter, former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq in 1991 - 1998. He talked about how this failed policy is now leading us to escalate to IRAN as you may have seen as the "trial balloons" have been sent up regularly in recent months through speeches and talking points. Ritter even suggested that it could be part of an "October Surprise" should things get bad enough on the election front. The possibilities of its implications on the US and the whole world will certainly wake the AMERICAN public up, if he is right, but perhaps not before it is too late.

It is time for a change. I'm not a political person, but I am a humanitarian and lover of the best in people and care deeply about sustainability of our planet and all its inhabitants. Also, I suppose I've lived long enough and worked long enough to recognize that when you have a long pattern of poor performance you need to make a course correction. In my leadership training at IBM, we were told there were three times when it was critical to TAKE ACTION and PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for poor performance:

1. When poor performance is impacting others.

2. When poor performance is impacting the organization.

3. When poor performance is impacting the bottomline.

I would say the poor performance of the BUSH ADMINISTRATION and our whole broken government system needs a course correction ---- an overhaul based on this criteria and by any standards. As citizens, we must get involved and take back our country not just in words, but through our involvement. All of us have spans of influence, so get out there and wake up your friends! VOTE! VOTE! VOTE your conscience! Your well-being may depend on it! We need everyone involved, alert and engaged to shift this dangerous, out of control trip we find ourselves on at this time in history.

The related podcast at the top, might be helpful in inspiring you. If you have great ideas to share, I welcome hearing them!